18 U.S.C. § 2339A

18 U.S.C. § 2339A, titled "Providing material support to terrorists," is a federal criminal statute that prohibits knowingly providing material support or resources to be used in preparation for or in carrying out any of a specified list of violent federal crimes. Unlike its companion statute 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, it does not require that the support be directed to a State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), making it available as a charging vehicle against domestic networks and individuals engaged in violent conspiracies without formal ideological or organizational affiliations to recognized foreign terrorist groups.

The statute gained its first use against a 764 Network member in the October 2025 indictment of Baron Cain Martin in United States v. Martin, 4:25-cr-00190-TUC-AMM(BGM), District of Arizona.¹

Elements of the Offense

To sustain a conviction under 2339A, the government must prove that the defendant:

1. Provided, attempted to provide, or conspired to provide material support or resources;
2. Knowing or intending that the material support would be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of a listed predicate offense.

No proof of membership in any terrorist organization is required. No proof of a specifically terrorist motive is required. The statute criminalizes support for the listed acts themselves, not support for any ideological or organizational entity.²

Definition of Material Support

"Material support or resources" is defined under the statute to include any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance (defined as advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge), safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (including oneself), and transportation. Medicine and religious materials are excluded.³

The breadth of this definition has been central to litigation: the "expert advice or assistance" category in particular has been used to encompass written manuals, operational guidance documents, and tactical training, as in the Martin case where DOJ classified the "Grooming/Manipulation Egirls Guide" authored by Martin as expert advice under the statute.

The Conspiracy Provision

Section 2339A contains its own conspiracy provision: "Whoever... conspires to commit any [listed] offense..." commits a crime. Because the conspiracy provision is self-contained, no overt act is required once the agreement is established. This means DOJ can charge a conspiracy under 2339A that is itself a conspiracy to commit another conspiracy charge (here, under 18 U.S.C. § 956(a)) without triggering the "conspiracy to conspire" objection that would apply to a standard double-conspiracy theory.⁴

Key Predicate Offenses

Section 2339A lists numerous predicate offenses against which the material support prohibition applies. In the 764 Network context, the most significant predicate is:

• 18 U.S.C. § 956: Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country

Section 956(a) requires a conspiracy within U.S. jurisdiction, an overt act by a conspirator within the United States, and that the target of the conspiracy be located outside the United States. This foreign-country requirement is what gives the Martin prosecution its jurisdictional hook: DOJ's theory requires only that one victim of the directed lethal coercion be located outside the United States.

Other predicate offenses in 2339A include violations of statutes covering weapons of mass destruction, aircraft piracy, nuclear sabotage, assassination of government officials, and mass transportation attacks, among others.

Contrast with 18 U.S.C. § 2339B

18 U.S.C. § 2339B, enacted by Congress to target support for organized foreign terrorist groups, requires that the support be "knowingly" directed to an organization that the Secretary of State has designated as an FTO under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The FTO designation requirement was upheld by the Supreme Court in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010), which rejected a First Amendment challenge but did not alter the statutory requirement of a designated organization.

Because 764 has not been designated an FTO by the State Department, 2339B was unavailable as a charging vehicle in the Martin prosecution. 2339A requires no such designation, making it the operative statute for domestic and transnational networks that engage in directed violence without formal State Department recognition as terrorist organizations.⁵

Sentencing

A violation of 2339A carries a maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment. If the offense resulted in death, the maximum is life imprisonment. The statute does not specify mandatory minimums.

Application to Nihilistic Violent Extremism

The use of 2339A in the Martin prosecution signals a significant extension of the statute's traditional domain. Prior 2339A prosecutions predominantly involved individuals providing support to designated foreign groups (ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah) or to known co-conspirators in attacks on foreign soil. The Martin case applies the statute to a domestic network member whose "material support" consisted of authoring a grooming manual and directing an extortion campaign that caused an overseas victim to be coerced into self-harm.

Legal analysts Luke Baumgartner and Barry Jonas of the GWU Program on Extremism argued in December 2025 that by "deploying a statute traditionally reserved for international terrorism," DOJ "has signaled that NVE networks like 764 are terrorist enterprises engaged in organized campaigns of violence and coercion designed to terrorize, destabilize, and degrade society."¹

A competing analysis, published in Just Security in March 2026, raised civil liberties concerns: because 2339A does not require proof of membership in any terrorist organization, does not require a terrorist motive, and does not require that the underlying conduct be recognizable as terrorism in its ordinary sense, the statute is "uniquely susceptible to potential overreach" and could criminalize conduct as trivial as carpooling to a political protest if it can be framed as material support for a predicate offense.⁶